Matching Items (1,855)
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The US National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society have recently released a detailed report on the causes and effects of global climate change.1 This report states that the Earth’s climate is rapidly changing due to human activity. Specifically, the burning of fossil fuels to satisfy the

The US National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society have recently released a detailed report on the causes and effects of global climate change.1 This report states that the Earth’s climate is rapidly changing due to human activity. Specifically, the burning of fossil fuels to satisfy the energy demands of rising global population has resulted in unprecedented levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. These high levels of greenhouse gasses are serving to warm the surface of the planet resulting in extreme weather events. Thus, controlling the atmospheric CO2 level is motivating a great deal of scientific research in the area of carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Despite the great strides being made in the areas of alternative energy and solar-energy conversion, consumption of fossil fuels for energy generation will likely continue into the foreseeable future. This is primarily motivated by economic factors inasmuch as fossil fuels are a proven resource base with robust harvesting and distribution infrastructure.2 Presently, there are more than 8,000 stationary CO2 emission sources with an annual output of 13,466 megatons of CO2 per year.2 In this context, development of systems that ameliorate the output of greenhouse gasses from stationary CO2 sources, such as coal and natural gas burning power plants, is urgently needed.

In this document the utility of sulfur nucleophiles for CCS schemes is explored. The main thrust of the research has been utilizing electrogenerated sulfur nucleophiles to capture CO2, which can be electrochemically recovered from the resulting thiocarbonates while concomitantly regenerating the masked capture agent. Further, a temperature swing CO2 capture scheme that employs benzylthiolate as the CO2 sorbent is proposed and methods of manipulating the release temperature and kinetics were investigated. These reports represent the first application of organosulfur compounds toward CCS technologies and there are a number of newly reported compounds. The appendix deviates from the theme of the first four chapters to describe the functionalization of poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) with ferrocene moieties by the copper catalyzed azide-alkyne coupling reaction. This material is discussed within the context of anion recognition and sensing applications.
ContributorsRheinhardt, Joseph (Author) / Buttry, Daniel A. (Thesis advisor) / Angell, Charles A. (Committee member) / Chizmeshya, Andrew V. G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
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Mammary gland development in humans during puberty involves the enlargement of breast tissue, but this is not true in non-human primates. To identify potential causes of this difference, I examined variation in substitution rates across genes related to mammary development. Genes undergoing purifying selection show slower-than-average substitution rates, while genes

Mammary gland development in humans during puberty involves the enlargement of breast tissue, but this is not true in non-human primates. To identify potential causes of this difference, I examined variation in substitution rates across genes related to mammary development. Genes undergoing purifying selection show slower-than-average substitution rates, while genes undergoing positive selection show faster rates. These may be related to the difference between humans and other primates. Three genes were found to be accelerated were FOXF1, IGFBP5, and ATP2B2, but only the latter one was found in humans and it seems unlikely that it would be related to the differences between mammary gland development at puberty between humans and non-human primates.
ContributorsArroyo, Diana (Author) / Cartwright, Reed (Thesis director) / Wilson Sayres, Melissa (Committee member) / Schwartz, Rachel (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
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A literature review summarizing the current status of conservation efforts of the Mojave Desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) including a brief overview of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and its applicability to this species' conservation. A genetic and physiological comparison of the morphologically similar Mojave species with the Sonoran (Gopherus morafkai)

A literature review summarizing the current status of conservation efforts of the Mojave Desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) including a brief overview of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and its applicability to this species' conservation. A genetic and physiological comparison of the morphologically similar Mojave species with the Sonoran (Gopherus morafkai) species proceeded by an analysis of if and how the ESA should apply to the Sonoran population. Analysis of current plans and interagency cooperations followed by a multi-step proposal on how best to conserve the Sonoran population of Desert tortoise.
ContributorsKulik, Elise Chikako (Author) / Kusumi, Kenro (Thesis director) / Tollis, Marc (Committee member) / Wilson Sayres, Melissa (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
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The modern web presents an opportunity for educators and researchers to create tools that are highly accessible. Because of the near-ubiquity of modern web browsers, developers who hope to create educational and analytical tools can reach a large au- dience by creating web applications. Using JavaScript, HTML, and other modern

The modern web presents an opportunity for educators and researchers to create tools that are highly accessible. Because of the near-ubiquity of modern web browsers, developers who hope to create educational and analytical tools can reach a large au- dience by creating web applications. Using JavaScript, HTML, and other modern web development technologies, Genie was developed as a simulator to help educators in biology, genetics, and evolution classrooms teach their students about population genetics. Because Genie was designed for the modern web, it is highly accessible to both educators and students, who can access the web application using any modern web browser on virtually any device. Genie demonstrates the efficacy of web devel- opment technologies for demonstrating and simulating complex processes, and it will be a unique educational tool for educators who teach population genetics.
ContributorsRoos, Benjamin Hirsch (Author) / Cartwright, Reed (Thesis director) / Wilson Sayres, Melissa (Committee member) / Mayron, Liam (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2015-05
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Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a type of liver cancer common in Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asian countries. Each year more than 700,000 new cases and more than 600,000 deaths are recorded worldwide due to HCC. According to the American Cancer Society HCC is ranked the 5th most common cancer

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a type of liver cancer common in Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asian countries. Each year more than 700,000 new cases and more than 600,000 deaths are recorded worldwide due to HCC. According to the American Cancer Society HCC is ranked the 5th most common cancer worldwide with a male:female susceptibility ratio ranging between 2:1 and 8:1. HCC risk factors include lifestyle behaviors, such as persistent alcohol abuse and smoking, prolonged exposure to aflatoxins, chronic viral hepatitis infections, inherited metabolic diseases and non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases. To understand the genetic effects underlying sex-bias in HCC, it is necessary to include the sex chromosomes in genomics analyses. X and Y chromosomes are often discluded in genomics studies because of the technical and analytical challenges: sequence homology. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the effects of sex chromosome complement aware read mapping to germline variant calling. 10 male and 10 female tumor adjacent samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas Liver Hepatocellular Carcinoma (TCGA LIHC) cohort were processed using sex-aware and default reference and the concordance of the two approaches was examined. We detected a higher disconcordance of 0.69% on variants called on the X chromosome and a disconcordance of 0.51% on variants called on the Y chromosomes for the reference and alternative alleles respectively compared to autosomes. Variants called on the REF/ALT genotypes had a disconcordances of 1.00%, 1.05%, 1.35% and 12.34% for the autosomes, chromosome 7, the X, and the Y chromosome, respectively. At the end of the project we concluded that the generated datasets showed the effect of sex-aware read mapping on variant calling. Though the data did not show the sites that can be called as variants in one dataset but not in the other, rather the concordance looked at sites that were called as variants in both data sets.
ContributorsPhiri, Lovender Teresa (Co-author) / Phiri, Lovender (Co-author) / Wilson Sayres, Melissa (Thesis director) / Buetow, Kenneth (Committee member) / Natri, Heini (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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With the new independence of adulthood, college students are a group susceptible to adopting unsupported, if not harmful, health practices. A survey of Arizona State University undergraduate students (N=200) was conducted to evaluate supplement use, trust in information sources, and beliefs about supplement regulation. Of those who reported using supplements,

With the new independence of adulthood, college students are a group susceptible to adopting unsupported, if not harmful, health practices. A survey of Arizona State University undergraduate students (N=200) was conducted to evaluate supplement use, trust in information sources, and beliefs about supplement regulation. Of those who reported using supplements, college students most frequently received information from friends and family. STEM majors in fields unrelated to health who were taking a supplement were found to be less likely to receive information about the supplement from a medical practitioner than those in health fields or those in non-STEM majors (-26.9%, p=0.018). STEM majors in health-related fields were 15.0% more likely to treat colds and/or cold symptoms with research-supported methods identified from reliable sources, while non-health STEM and non-STEM majors were more likely to take unsupported cold treatments (p=0.010). Surveyed students, regardless of major, also stated they would trust a medical practitioner for supplement advice above other sources (88.0%), and the majority expressed a belief that dietary supplements are approved/regulated by the government (59.8%).
ContributorsPerez, Jacob Tanner (Author) / Hendrickson, Kirstin (Thesis director) / Lefler, Scott (Committee member) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Physics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05